


Our Star Won't Go Out

by bearmitage



Category: The Maze Runner RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Real World, Alternative Perspective, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-23
Packaged: 2018-05-27 06:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6273184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearmitage/pseuds/bearmitage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What is your wish?"</p><p>"It will spoil my wish if I tell you."</p><p> </p><p>I wish I could turn back the clock so I would be with him sooner and love him longer, even just a second.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1 Vol.1

**Author's Note:**

> This fiction is inspired by The Fault in Our Stars, the mesmerising story written by John Green to whom is believed to be in love with killing our favourite characters. (But I love him, and I love his works, by the way.)  
> I have own neither the copyright, nor idea. The characters in this story , for an example, Dylan O’Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Kihong Lee, and so on truly exist but they aren’t relevant to this, they only appear as my fictional characters and I have no intention to take any advantages from them. Thank you for your understanding.  
> P.S. English is not my first language so I'm sorry in advance if there is any mistake. Thank you.

 

 

 

     Kihong: Hey, how was your driving test?

 

     I write back: Cool.

 

     Kihong: What do you mean “cool”? You mean your teacher didn’t jump out of the car this time, or you mean you didn’t smash that thing again?

 

_It’s called cone, Kihong._

 

     Me: Haha, funny.

 

     Kihong: I guess he stopped screaming because he was shocked so he just sat unconsciously this time.

 

     Me: I hate you.

 

     Kihong: Love you too xx

 

     I stop texting him and continue reading The Superior Spider-Man. This conversation basically summed up the ‘driving’ story of me and Kihong  who I knew since we’re in kindergarten. He’s also the lab rat in my ‘driving experiment’ and said that he would rather sleep in rollercoaster than sitting in my car. Well, it was not that bad for the man who doesn’t have two normal legs like me,

 

     Yes, like me.

 

     I wear the prosthetic leg, the left one. The thing is…..I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma when I was seventeen, the worse is I had to stop running or doing whatever damaging or encouraging the tumor inside my body. I know what you are thinking, you are probably thinking of Augustus Waters from John Green agonizing story that you will bawl your eyes out like a griever (not that one in Dashner’s books, by the way.) _‘The Fault in Our Stars’_. Yes, of course. He and me share the same diagnosis unless I am not that tall, not as much as Ansel Elgort is.

 

     After I was diagnosed, I stopped running, quit participating in the team but the worst thing is the time when everyone trying to say sorry and ‘you don’t deserve this’ again and again after my leg was cut in the same year. Of course, nobody deserves this, having the tumor inside of your body is not what you deserve, obviously. But I’m fine, like literally fine. Yes, there was the day I went to school and wanted to lock myself in the locker pretending to be the dead turtle which was sneakily taken to school by some dude, but except that, I’m fine.

 

     Kihong: Shank, are you alright?

 

     Me: What? Cool, yeah, I mean I’m fine. What can I be?

 

     Kihong: God, I think you ran away, avoiding the support group today.

 

 _Ugh_ – **the support group**

 

     After I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, my doctor suggested joining support group would be the good deed for preventing me from sadness of losing my leg. But I am not depressed, not even sad. Everyone thinks having a cancer is the side-effect of dying, which is not true. It is the one of the side-effects of learning how to cope with life. Life without obstruction would be very peaceful, and boring at the same time.

 

     Even though, I hate going to the support group where they treat us like we are dying, losing our lifetime on earth. Having osteosarcoma doesn’t make me feel depressed, having people feeling sorry for what happened does. The support group is where your share your life and diagnosis, eat cookie, and–

 

     Kihong: On my way.

 

     Seriously, how much does his payment cost each month? He is well-known for texting because he is too busy eating food that he can’t talk. But Kihong and I barely talk to each other on phone, this is the moment when I start to wonder if he eats all the time.

 

     Whoops, where are we now? Oh yes, _the support group_ , I’ve started joining the support group about a year and a half and barely gone there since some of the members disappeared. We all know what that means– _they passed away._ I hate the depressive atmosphere including the miserable smile and sympathetic eyes staring at me when I said my leg was cut because of tumor floating around that room like I am going to be the next one. That’s really pathetic.

 

     Me: Dude, it is about _two_ hours away.

 

     Kihong: (is he supposed to drive a car now?) they have cookies.

 

     “Dyl?”

 

     That’s Julia, my sister. She always voluntarily spends her free time on taking care of me when Dad and Mom aren’t home. She is cool, I mean, really cool. Julia is one of the girls that will play video game or read those pile of comic books with you. And–

 

     “Dylan, are you alright?”

 

     “Yeah, I’m fine.” I reply, “just finished texting Kihong, if he arrives, please tell him that I am sleeping.”

 

     “I’m afraid– ”

 

     “Please, Jules.”

 

     “Too late, shank.” The door opens and Kihong walks in, eyes-closed smiling that I am afraid his eyes would be swallowed by his cheeks. I realize it is too late to pretend that I am sleeping (even I just sent text about….uh, three minutes ago.)

 

     Me: “I refuse to go to the support group for your cookies.”

 

     Kihong: “No, dude, it’s not about cookies. You can’t stay here for the rest of your life, wrapped by the blanket and being a burrito of sadness.”

 

     Me: “What the hell was that? And plus, I am not depressed.”

 

     Julia: “One of the symptoms of depression is you never know that you are depressed.”

 

     Me: (somehow made an angry turtle’s noise) “UGHHHHHHHHHHHH”

 

     Kihong: “Come on, man. You missed the meeting about five times straight, and people start asking me if you are alive or not, plus, your parents want you to do so, I hate to say this but Dyl, don’t make they worry about you.”

  
  
     That shut me up immediately. _Don’t make they worry about you._ “Alright, you win.” I get up from my couch, close my laptop then wear my jacket, look at Julia as she hugs me like I was her little brother. _I want to make them happy_ – even there is the entire episode of **Supernatural** I’d be missing.


	2. Chapter 1 Vol.2

 

 

 

 

 

_I believe we have a choice in this world about how to tell sad stories. On the one hand, you can sugarcoat it. Nothing is too messed up that cannot be fixed with Ed Sheeran’s Song. I like that version as much as everyone does. It is just not the truth, this is the truth._

  


 

 

_Where is my blanket?_

 

 

     “Afternoon, Sleeping Beauty, raise and shine.”

 

     Uh….. “Sleep fights cancer, Mum.”

 

 

     “Darling, it’s almost twelve.” This time she pulls away the curtain and I can’t help knotting my eyebrows together when the light comes in. Mum places her hand on my head and strokes my hair. My head is still dizzy like somebody has just spun it around the whole morning. “Time for lunch!”

 

 

     I did tell you that we just had a breakfast about two or three hours ago, didn’t I?

 

 

     “Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, lunchhhhhhh. So exciting.” I pretend to cheer up by waving my hands as she spreads her smile to every single inch of my face. Obviously, she knows I’m faking it.

 

 

     “Come on sweetheart, cheer up.” She says.

 

 

     “I am going to, is that counted?” I reply, smiling at her this time.

 

 

     “Yes if you mean it.” I stand up to help her fold my blanket but she insists on doing it alone, commanding me to sit on my bed. I watch her and blink slightly then decide to gather my book that lies near **R2-D2**. “Do you need me to help carry you to the dining room, well, I mean….”

 

 

     “No thanks…..that……um”

 

     “I know.” She laughs before leaving my room. “When does my angel don’t have the sense of humour?”

  
  


 

     Late in the autumn of my fifteenth years, there was something happening to me. To clarify the latest sentence, I was studying biology and that was the moment when my blood started splitting over my nose and my desk and I just passed out then woke up in the hospital the day after with the cannula right through my nostril. The doctor said there were too many lymphocytes in my bloodstream, my liver and spleen were larger than normal, and _boom!_ I was diagnosed with leukemia stage two with chronic Thyroid. It’s funny, isn’t it? I cannot believe my mum just said that I don’t have a sense of humour.

 

 

     Later, after being diagnosed by the doctor, I was diagnosed with depression by my mum, likely because I have hardly left home or hung out. Actually, I just have spent about a whole day in my house, half of it in my room, reading my favourite book and watching my favourite films over and over again. I’ve rarely thought about death, in fact, if there is something to make me depressed, it is the realisation of knowing that there would be plenty of good books and films that I am going to missed because of my short life expectancy. That is terribly, terribly bad.

 

 

     My mum, nevertheless, had always thought that I required treatment to cope with depression, so she took me to my doctor, Doctor um…. Doctor Spencer (for those of you who are looking to say _Doctor Who….._ not today son).  And he agreed with her, suggesting that I should attend to the weekly support group to avoid depression.

 

 

     I don’t hate the support group, _I just don’t like it._

 

 

     Aml, leader of the support group, always asks us whether we have anything to share then everyone will start talking about fighting, battling, winning, and losing and um…dying. Basically, we just spend our afternoon talking about us, _cancer survivors_ , and the odyssey of life with cancer as it is the most heroic thing on earth, definitely, there will have somebody sobbing at the corner and someone eating nitrogen-free cookies, merely listening to the story. That is the real depression.

  
  


 

     “Honey, lunch is ready!”

 

     “Okay.” I answer and try to pull my **R2-D2** outside the door. It gets struck _again_.

  
  


 

     Mum: “Darling, could you pass salad to me?”

 

     Dad: “Yup.”

 

     Mum: “What do you plan to do today?”

 

     Dad: “Doing my jo….”

 

     Mum: “No, honey, I mean Tommy.”

 

     Dad: “Oh.”

 

     Me: “Oh….”

 

 

     I try to stuff the cabbage as much as I can into my mouth as Mum and Dad are silent, it doesn’t work. They’re just staring and smiling at me.

 

 

     Me: “You guys know that staring at somebody is creepy, right?”

 

     Mum: “I think going to the support group is such a good plan.”

 

 

     I shake my head slightly, try to drink lemonade this time.

 

 

     Me: “I don’t think so.”

 

     Mum: “One of the symptoms of depression is disinterest in activities”

 

     Me: “Watching _Game of Thrones_ is one of the activities.”

 

     Mum: “Television is just a passivity.”

 

     Me: “Mum…….Dad, say something.”

 

 

     He just raises his eyebrows and continues eating roasted beef. Ugh.

 

 

     Mum: “You are not a little kid anymore, darling. You cannot just lock yourself in your room for the rest of your life. You need to go outside, make friends, and _live._ ”

 

     Me: “I don’t think sending me to the support group is the way to live my life Mum. You can take me to the club so I can get some drink….and uh…..take pot....whatever.”

 

     Dad: “You don’t take pot, for starter, Tommy.”

 

     Me: “See, that’s the kind of thing I would learn if you don’t send me to the support group.”

 

 

     This time they both are looking at me silently. You could hear Mrs. Hudson’s cat singing next door. Mum finally says “You deserve a life, I want you to.”

 

 

     I exhale slowly. “Okay.”  


 

     The reason why I go to the support group is truly simple…. _to make my parents happy._ There is only one thing worse than being diagnosed with cancer when you’re fifteenth, and that’s having your parents worried about you. You cannot stop them from worrying, what you can do is just to show them that you are having _life._

 

 

     I watch Mum parking the car in front of the building. Lingeringly, I pretend to adjust my cannula which is actually in its place for a several seconds just to kill time.

 

 

     “Is everything alright?”

 

 

     “Yes, it’s okay.” I answer as she offers to help me to carry my oxygen tank. My **R2-D2** weighs only a few pounds so it is not necessary to have someone manage it for me. Furthermore, I’m used it. Carrying it like your second backpack is not too bad. It’s pretty cool, actually, especially when I go to hospital and have the kids looking at it with amaze me. It delivered two litres of oxygen to me each minute through a transparent tube called cannula because my lungs is bad at being lungs.

 

 

     “I love you.” She says as I get out of the car.

 

     “Aha, you too.” I reply.

 

     “ **Make friends!** ”

 

  
  
      _Okay._


End file.
